May 21, 2010

"I like making images that from a distance seem kind of seductive, colorful, luscious and engaging, and then you realize what you’re looking at is something totally opposite. It seems boring to me to pursue the typical idea of beauty, because that is the easiest and the most obvious way to see the world. It’s more challenging to look at the other side."

-Cindy Sherman

A lot of the time I blame my style ruts and lazy dressing on life being poopy (I know I'm lucky, but I'm also angsty, and a teenager) and on hostile environments. No matter how many times I try to stick with the "life is beautiful! Everyone is nice once you get to know them!" mindset, I end up more with the "life sucks, you're standing on my neck" one, because I go to school (or anywhere, but mostly school) and get all sad because there is sexism and racism and ableism and homophobia and other isms and phobias and general depressing...middle schoolyness. For a while I've let myself use this as a reason to wear a very basic combination of things, every day. But really I should use these hostile environments as reasons as to why I should create my own world through my outfits, because a certain outfit totally puts you in a different place, and it's easier to ignore certain kinds of people when I'm in my own world, yes? And as far as life sucking goes, this then makes me want to create and learn and absorb as many interesting things as I can. This doesn't mean the realities of Life Suckage, like the isms and phobias, should go ignored, and I try to do both (not the isms and phobias, I mean creating my own world as well as trying to make life not suck for other people.) This is fulfilling to me. I'm putting this here because I want to hear what you think and because I'll get in more ruts and have to come back to it. If I read this in many years I will shake my head at all the teenagerness, then be sort of pleased.